Precision tests with Kl3 and Kl2 decays

The analysis made in 2000 indicated that the unitarity relation Vud^2 + Vus^2 + Vub^2 = 1 might be broken at the 2.3 sigma level. At that time, however, Vus was inferred from old experimental data. Since then, a great experimental and theoretical effort has been invested to understand the source of that discrepancy. Thanks to the new and improved measurements by BNL-E865, KLOE, KTeV, ISTRA+ and NA48, the old Kl3 decay rate got shifted so that the new Vus is now consistent with unitarity. On the theory side, much progress in the lattice QCD has been made in order to tame the systematic uncertainties related to the computation of the Kl3 form factors. This joint progress allowed to assess the validity of the CKM unitarity relation at the level of less than 1%. The key challenge of the future lattice studies will be to simulate lighter pions in the region in which ChPT predictions apply. Also interesting is the recent progress in accurately computing the kaon and pion decay constants on the lattice, which then give us access to Vus and Vud from the corresponding leptonic decays. In addition, we discuss that the Kl3 and Kl2 decays offer the possibility to test various scenarios of physics beyond Standard Model.Comment: Contributed to the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP2007), Manchester, England, 19-25 Jul 200

K* vector and tensor couplings from Nf = 2 tmQCD

The mass m_K* and vector coupling f_K* of the K*-meson, as well as the ratio of the tensor to vector couplings fT/fV|_K*, are computed in lattice QCD. Our simulations are performed in a partially quenched setup, with two dynamical (sea) Wilson quark flavours, having a maximally twisted mass term. Valence quarks are either of the standard or the Osterwalder-Seiler maximally twisted variety. Results obtained at three values of the lattice spacing are extrapolated to the continuum, giving m_K* = 981(33) MeV, f_K* = 240(18) MeV and fT(2 GeV)/fV|_K* = 0.704(41).Comment: 1+11 page

Radiative corrections to WL WL scattering in composite Higgs models

The scattering of longitudinally polarized electroweak bosons is likely to play an important role in the elucidation of the fundamental nature of the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking sector and in determining the Higgs interactions with this sector. In this paper, by making use of the Equivalence Theorem, we determine the renormalization properties of the electroweak effective theory parameters in a model with generic Higgs couplings to the W and Z bosons. When the couplings between the Higgs and the electroweak gauge bosons deviate from their Standard Model values, additional counterterms of O(p^4) in the usual chiral counting are required. We also determine in the same approximation the full radiative corrections to the WL WL->ZL ZL process in this type of models. Assuming custodial invariance, all the related processes can be easily derived from this amplitude.Comment: minor changes and typos correcte

Probing low energy scalar leptoquarks by the leptonic WW and ZZ couplings

We compute the generic one-loop contribution involving scalar leptoquarks (LQ) to the $W$ and $Z$ leptonic decay widths. In our computation we include for the first time the finite terms and the corrections due to the external momenta of the electroweak bosons, which is a step beyond the leading-logarithmic approximation considered in the literature so far. We show that the terms we include can be numerically quite significant. They amount to about $20\%$ for scalar LQ masses below $1.5$~TeV, as currently allowed by the direct searches at the LHC. To further illustrate the relevance of our results we revisit a model with two light scalar LQs, proposed to accommodate the $B$-physics anomalies. We show that the finite terms we computed can reduce the tension with the $Z$-pole data.Comment: Minor typos amende